The Relationship between Preference and Recognition in Four-year-olds:

In the Case of Tactile Learning and Visual Testing

Abstract

It is known that infants prefer looking at novel objects, while adults prefer familiar objects. The point is that preference for the objects may depend, to some extent, on whether or not the objects were experienced. This may indicate the relationship between preferential behavior and memory. Our previous study, where we conducted in four-year-olds a visual-visual intramodal preference task and a recognition task, revealed that the children who had lower scores in the recognition task preferred the novel stimuli, and the children who had higher scores preferred the familiar stimuli (Uehara & Shimojo, 1996a). However, infants were said to prefer looking at the familiar stimuli which they had experienced orally. To examine the influence of the change of modalities on the relationship between preference and memory in four-year-olds, I employed tactile-visual preference and recognition tests. The results revealed that the subjects who recognized the objects preferred the familiar objects and the subjects who failed to recognize them preferred the novel. Although there was a possibility that the subject felt having experienced the object because the subject preferred it or vice versa, the present study demonstrated new results.